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So I'm looking at upgrading my system, which as it stands is:

P4-2.8C 800mhz
ASUS P4P800PE mobo
512mb ddr3200
X800pro 256mb
20gb 2mb cache IDE HDD
40gb 2mb cache IDE HDD


I'm looking at replacing the 2 HDDs with a single SATA 250gb 16mb cache HDD (with a second one of the same later) and putting in 1 or 2gb or ddr3200.

Is this a sensible upgrade path for me at this point?

Hard drives are cheap, so a 250 gig SATA drive is sensible. If you can afford it, buy as close to 2 gigs of ram as you can. I personally hold that you can NEVER have too much ram, but I realize that that's not always practical.

Still, if I had to prioritize, I'd recommend the RAM first.

For performance, RAM first and HD later. For storing stuff, HD first and RAM later - the real question is, what do you want to do?

And yes, you can have too much RAM if your OS can't efficiently use all of it (Windows XP 32-bit being limited to using 2.3GB effectively in most circumstances).

phongn wrote:(Windows XP 32-bit being limited to using 2.3GB effectively in most circumstances).

Zuh?

phongn wrote:For performance, RAM first and HD later. For storing stuff, HD first and RAM later - the real question is, what do you want to do?

And yes, you can have too much RAM if your OS can't efficiently use all of it (Windows XP 32-bit being limited to using 2.3GB effectively in most circumstances).

Having too much RAM can't hurt your performance! Your OS might not be able to utilize it all, but it certainly won't hurt performace.

I'd recommend keeping one of the smaller drives for software installations and such, then putting in the 250 gig drive for pure storage. That way it's less likely to get bogged down with a bunch of extra crap and will more than likely have a somewhat longer lifespan.

General Zod wrote:I'd recommend keeping one of the smaller drives for software installations and such, then putting in the 250 gig drive for pure storage. That way it's less likely to get bogged down with a bunch of extra crap and will more than likely have a somewhat longer lifespan.

Which hard drive are you referring to when you say it's less likely to get bogged down? And where are you getting this notion that doing this will somehow extend the lifespan of the hard drive?

Uraniun235 wrote:

phongn wrote:(Windows XP 32-bit being limited to using 2.3GB effectively in most circumstances).

Zuh?

Aiee, I messed up, that should be 3.3GB under XP SP2.

One harddrive for the OS + applications and one for everything else.

This means heavy lifting from the data disk does not impact on the all important seek times on the OS +Application drive. Any cd images or the like should be stored on the data disk, no where the game is running from

Partitions or sharing the same pata IDE cable negate any potential gains.

It probably isnt worth holding onto those older pata drives, since the seek times (which is where harddisk prefroamnce is determined) are probably shitty. But look it up

Uraniun235 wrote:

phongn wrote:(Windows XP 32-bit being limited to using 2.3GB effectively in most circumstances).

Zuh?

Windows XP sp2 32bit can only address a maxium 3.12gb of physical address space due to driver compadibility issues.

This means it will ignore any more than 3.12gb of physical ram. Put 16 terabytes of RAM in the machine and WinXPsp2 32bit will only ever use 3.12gb of it. Ever

I thought it was 3.3GB? That's the word on Ars, IIRC, and that's down from 3.7GB on SP1. Though OTOH, the same thread had reports of nVidia drivers crashing with the /3GB switch ...

What about PAE?

phongn Microsoft linky. I blame rounding

Pu-239 wrote:What about PAE?

Windows XP 32bit is hardcoded not to accept any physical address above 4gb, while the kernel itself does support it when in PAE mode.

The 3.12gb is to work around a class of driver bugs(DMA/PCI issues really).

Windows XP 64bit/Vista is apparently hardcoded to only support 128gb of ram. This is a compile time limit, so if anyone ever perfects 128gb ram modules in the next few years Microsoft can release a patch support it.